if i were james dean (you could be my audrey hepburn)
by Immoroita
Summary: can't promise that things won't be broken, but i swear that i will never leave / [seigou, momogou, a bit of both]
1. some things are just genetic

**Author's Note: **This is also on archiveofourown. You can find me on there as **Bookie**.

Remember to review if you favorite!

* * *

Momotarou bursts in right as he's tossing another handful of potato chips into his mouth. Some inane soap opera that makes him unreasonably emotional is playing loudly. In the twilight zone between 'graduation' and _graduation – _in italics – Seijuro finds that there really isn't much to do other than watch bad TV and take a leisurely amount of time to decide exactly what he should do with all those pictures of Gou Matsuoka that he has stacked up on his desk.

When the door opens, Seijuro immediately throws the bag of chips across the room, where it lands about three feet shy of the garbage can, and gets to his feet. "What are you doing here?" Or, more specifically, _why do you have to burst in at the one time I am not being a Perfect Role Model?_

"I live here," his brother says, but doesn't push it any farther, which is mildly concerning, as he never misses an opportunity to prove Seijuro wrong, but it's not like Seijuro is going to point that out.

"Oh." Of course. Momotarou doesn't stay in the Samezuka dorms like he did, due to much less commitments and responsibilities – which he makes a mental note to talk to his brother about, because he's going to make sure that his legacy is fulfilled. (Somewhat. Seijuro is quite sure he's set the bar too high for his brother to really catch up. Lucky for their sister, Samezuka is an all-males school.)

While his mind is focused on the subject of school – "Hey, Momo." (His brother doesn't even call him out on the nickname. Another strange thing to add to the slowly-growing list.) "How's school going so far? Joined any clubs yet?"

"Yeah," Momotarou responds, but doesn't elaborate on what it is.

Something is happening, Seijuro realizes, and flicks off the TV.

Upon closer scrutiny, the former swim team captain realizes that something odd is _definitely_going on; Momotarou looks happy – elated, even – but kind of dazed, which is a look Seijuro has definitely seen before. Either his little brother has just been hit on the head with a metal object, or he's in love.

It takes him embarrassingly long to realize that Momotarou, who is now lying on the bed and humming tunelessly to himself, has not, in fact, been knocked senseless by a lamppost.

"Man," Seijuro huffs, and runs a hand through his hair. "If you came here to ask for advice on seducing women, I haven't had the best luck either recently, okay?"

(More like no luck at all. The less attractive Matsuoka and his kinky shark teeth proved to be a bigger obstacle in his quest for Gou's heart and eventual hand in marriage than he anticipated.)

"Ah-h-h, nii-chan," Momotarou sighs, and sits up quickly to look at Seijuro with plaintive eyes. "How did you know?"

"Know what? That you wanted my advice?"

"Yes."

"I've been there before. You're just lucky you have an older brother to guide you through it, Momo!"

"Don't call me that," Momotarou responds automatically, and flops back onto the bed. "I met a really cute girl today, you know."

"Hmm," is Seijuro's only response. His eyes flicker over to the pile of photographs on his desk, taken down from his dorm room walls. His mind drifts to Gou and how this is exactly how he felt when he met her. Good for his brother. It seems that it is time for him to go through the rite of passage.

"Like, she was _really_cute. Nii, I don't think you understand. I'm going to marry her."

"Hah. Okay. And what did you do when you met this girl?"

"I told her I like hunting stag beetles."

"Oh."

Seijuro can't deny a little sense of disappointment, but whatever. So he's a little rusty. Big deal. Momotarou is young. He has time.

"Then what?"

"Nothing. Her brother dragged me away."

This story is sounding incredibly familiar. Seijuro chuckles, without a hint of bitterness, and thinks of the less attractive Matsuoka.

"Huh. Looks like you really are my brother! I'm proud of you." He strides over and crouches down to ruffle Momotarou's hair. The younger boy waves him away halfheartedly.

"Does this mystery girl have a name?"

"Ah … yes. Matsuoka Gou. Isn't that a beautiful name?"

… oh.

Oh, _shit._

Oh, **_shit_**.

"Gou-kun?" explodes from Seijuro's mouth, and he stands up indignantly.

His lady love? Like, _his _lady love? Of all people, his little brother had to go and develop an infatuation with _her_? No **fucking** way. He won't allow it.

"You know her? And … Gou-kun? Really? That's what she likes to be called?"

The last three sentences are brushed aside irately as Seijuro grabs a picture from his desk and quite literally shoves it in his brother's face. "Is that her?"

"Yes!" Momotarou grabs it from Seijuro's hand and studies it carefully, the dreamy look creeping back into his eyes. "I guess you really do know her! Pretty well, if you got to take pictures. Can you introduce me?"

"No, I will _not _introduce you to Gou-kun," Seijuro exclaims. Or, rather, he barks.

"Why not, nii-chan?"

"_Because_."

And he leaves it at that, snatching the picture back and shoving it behind the stack of old textbooks on his desk.

"But – nii – I don't think you understand. If I'm going to _marry _Gou-san – ah, Gou-kun, I have to start _somewhere_."

"_You're not going to marry her_," Seijuro insists, because if anyone is going to marry her, he is. And their babies will be spectacularly beautiful and talented and perfect in all aspects. If his _brother _marries her, where does that leave him? To be the coolest, most admirable uncle ever to children who are less beautiful, less talented, and less perfect? Yeah, _right_. Gou deserves perfect children. Gou deserves so much.

And, well, Seijuro isn't sure that Momotarou really **gets **what's so special about her. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps not ever.

Momotarou sits up and responds passionately: "Just you wait."

"You're going to have to face the facts one day, little bro."

Momotarou is out the door just as quickly as he came in, slamming the door behind him dramatically. Seijuro groans, falls down on the sofa again, and turns on the television. That truly awful soap opera is still playing. After a few moments of blank staring, he decides that, fuck it, he's going to watch the entire thing.

Because _God_, Seijuro sucks at giving advice about love, and this debacle has done nothing to improve his track record.


	2. denial is not just a river

**Author's Note: **Posting this one and chapter three together because they're both pretty short.

* * *

"Matsuoka Gou, here to see the captain, please," she tells the man at the front desk, just as she has so many times before. He pencils her in, has her fill out a form that she's pretty much memorized already, and she's in the door before five minutes have passed.

The first thing she notices when she steps in is that Sousuke, who is warming up by the end of the pool, has _amazing _deltoids. And, well, amazing _everything_, actually. You don't get to be one of the top swimmers in the country by piling on the donuts.

The second thing she notices is that Captain Mikoshiba isn't there.

"Gou," her brother greets from behind her, and catches her off-guard as she's staring absentmindedly at the door that Mikoshiba used to come out of to meet with her. Gou turns to him more quickly than she usually would have.

"Y-yes! Hi."

"Are you here to talk about a joint practice?"

"Yes. What time is good for you?"

As they discuss, she finds herself thinking about the old captain, which is odd.

To be honest, Gou didn't think she'd miss him; after all, they weren't particularly close. Hardly friends, really. Their interactions were limited to scheduling joint practices, the actual joint practices, competitions, and chance meetings as she came and went from Samezuka to visit her brother. Other than that, they never saw each other.

She supposes that, were a zombie apocalypse to strike, she'd forge an alliance with him if they met each other, but that's about the extent of their relationship.

And, actually, she doesn't think she really "misses" him, per se. It's just that the lack of his presence is throwing her off. Gou's life has been shifting quite a lot recently, what with the return of Sousuke and nationals coming up, but the one thing she never thought would change … well, it was Rin originally, but he's changed more than anyone else.

Now, it's taken his departure from – from her _life, _perhaps, to realize that the only constant she had was Captain Mikoshiba, apparently.

Yes, he was always there, smiling heartily and tripping over himself for whatever reason. He was always in the same place, always did the same things. It was kind of boring, in a really comforting way.

Now it's gone, and Gou doesn't have a constant anymore. Her life is back in flux. Goddamn it.

"… so does four on Friday work for you?"

"Yes. Yes, it works."

"Great. See you."

"Okay. Bye."

Rin waves at her with a smile. He's been smiling a lot recently. In fact, Gou thinks that she's seen him smile more in the past few months than she ever has since he got back from Australia.

She stands and watches the swimmers (and their muscles, which haven't gotten old yet) for a while, and finds that her eyes seem inexplicably drawn to the spot where Captain Mikoshiba always stood, barking out orders at his team. Initially, she was under the impression that he himself wasn't very gifted in the swimming department, considering she'd actually never seen him swim in practices, but she was soon proven wrong.

Man. Some people just got to have _everything, _didn't they?

It was embarrassing, and something Gou had only ever told Chigusa, but for a while, she'd entertained the idea of pursuing the captain. There wasn't really much of a reason not to; he really was the whole package. Plus, he had called her cute that one time.

It was a short-lived idea, though. Before long, Gou had to acknowledge (with some helpful brotherly nudging from Rin) the apparently unavoidable fact that someone like _him _would never like someone like _her_. The age difference was the very least of the problems.

Oh, well. It was just a mindless schoolgirl crush. Sort of. She wasn't sure. Captain Mikoshiba had always been a gray area for her. He was like that one third-year that all the middle school girls talked about and giggled about when he walked past them. Gou couldn't see herself with someone like that.

Of course, Gou couldn't see herself with _anyone_, but that was hardly the point.

After a few more moments of admiring Sousuke's deltoids as he got out of the pool, she decided that it was high time she left. There wasn't anything else for her there; if she wanted muscles, there were perfectly good ones back at the swim club.

There _was_ a lack of hearty, passionate, red-headed swim captains at the swim club, but there wasn't one here, either, so it wasn't really a loss.


	3. rin fulfills his brotherly duties

"Onii-chan?"

"Hm?"

"You know Captain Mikoshiba?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Does he have a girlfriend?"

Rin pauses in his answer, because he can see where this is going. She's only known the guy for two months, for God's sake; if she's looking for a romantic relationship, well, he'll have to give his consent first.

So he considers the facts.

He thinks about the way Mikoshiba looks at Gou, so clearly enamored with her, and how much more lenient he is with the swim team when she's around. And he also thinks (a little sheepishly) about how beautiful their children – and, by extension, his nephews and nieces – would be, although that may be thinking a bit too far into the hypothetical future.

But he also thinks about how whimsical Mikoshiba is. How carefree. He sure as hell doesn't act like a real captain should. (Or, perhaps, Rin is simply too busy being gloomy to notice the way Mikoshiba treats the rest of his team, but that is completely beside the point.)

After a few more moments of contemplation, Rin decides that isn't about to let his little sister get involved with his swim captain.

"Yes. He does."

"Really? What's she like?"

"She's … a third-year, just like him. She's, ah, tall. And she has brown hair. And she swims, too."

"… oh."

(Rin tries to ignore the surprising dejection in her voice and almost succeeds.)


	4. momotarou mikoshiba, master of seduction

"Oh. Mikoshiba. You're here already. And you're also standing right next to the door. Interesting."

"Yes, Rin-senpai! I got here early so that I wouldn't miss Gou-kun when she came in!"

_Whew. Almost used –san just then. That was close!_

Ordinarily, he would, but his big brother calls her Gou-kun, and Seijuro hasn't been wrong about anything yet. Not that Momotarou knows of, anyway.

"… I'm not even going to address that."

Rin simply shakes his head in exasperation and walks over to the poolside to put away his things, with Nitori trailing along behind him, talking rapidly about something that Momotarou doesn't care enough about to eavesdrop on.

When he learned that Iwatobi-Samezuka joint practices were a 'thing', there had been a lot of excitement and a lot of loud humming and bad attempts at whistling.

So here he is, standing by the door of the pool, ready to embark on the first steps of making his captain's (mind-blowingly cute) little sister fall in love with him.

Frankly, Momotarou has no clue why his brother is so against it. It's not like he has any reason to be. But every time he tries to talk to Seijuro about it, it hasn't gone well at all. The last time he tried, Seijuro signed him up for a dorm in a fit of desperation, just so he wouldn't be hanging around the house so often.

Brothers, right?

Ah, well. Rooming with Nitori isn't so bad. For some reason, Nitori is obsessively insistent on keeping the dorm room tidy, and when Momotarou doesn't bother, he cleans up himself, so there is that benefit.

Although Momotarou is _also _pretty sure that Nitori is at least fifty per cent gay, if the whole 'mumbling Rin's name in his sleep' thing is any indication, but that's a whole other issue that Momotarou refuses to touch. Not with a fifty meter pole.

Nitori is in good company, though. Seijuro has complained about the sexual tension between Rin and all of the Iwatobi swim club far too many times for Momotarou's liking.

Seriously.

Still, there are more pressing matters than trying to figure out the sexuality of half the guys in town. Momotarou's lips stretch into a wide beam as the door opens and the object of his affections walks in, carrying a clipboard, pencil stuck behind her ear.

He's pretty sure that his heart stops beating for a few seconds before starting again at hyperspeed at the sight of her. She doesn't even acknowledge him when she strides past, towards her brother.

"Gou."

"Onii-chan!"

_Aaaaagghhhhhhhhhhh, _her voice is sending him into cardiac arrest. She has got to be the cutest girl in the entire universe.

Momotarou doesn't get a chance to put his plan in motion just yet, because he's still suffering from the paralysis that she seems to instill in him, and the Iwatobi team has just walked in, too.

Rin hops up on a starting block, and everyone gathers around him. Momotarou wonders if this is the way his brother looked in his term as swim captain.

Yeah. Probably just the same. Momotarou can see the image in his mind right now – exactly like Rin, except more impressive and leaderly. He is a Mikoshiba, after all.

One day, Momotarou is going to be the captain of the team. And it's totally not because Seijuro says that he will make sure that Momotarou is disowned if he doesn't make captain. It's just brotherly encouragement and _definitely_ not serious.

Still … just in case, right?

"… and prefecturals are coming up, so everyone remember to focus on the strokes that you will be swimming. All right – let's get started."

The crowd breaks apart into smaller groups. Rin remains atop the starting block for a while longer, surveying the room, then steps down, motioning Nitori, Momotarou, and Sousuke towards him.

"I guess I should tell you guys now that I've chosen you three and myself to be the ones to swim the medley relay at prefecturals, which means we should do some practices against the Iwatobi team today."

"Okay," Momotarou says.

"I'm swimming the freestyle leg," Sousuke says.

Nitori says a bunch of concerned (worried?) stuff that Momotarou can't hear, because his attention has already been claimed by Gou, and – _oh god, she sticks her tongue out when she's concentrating. Oh, no. I'm dying. I can feel it. She's killing me. Goodbye, world. This is it. Wait, I haven't written my will yet. Should I leave my stag beetle collection to Seijuro or –_

"Okay, Mikoshiba?"

He drops back to earth with a heavy _thud_; two pairs of eyes are glaring at him. The last pair is still trained on Rin.

"Yes, Rin-senpai."

(What is he saying 'yes' to? He has no clue. He might have just given Rin permission to stab him a thousand times in the mouth.)

"Right. Practice your strokes. We'll be doing the practice relay in about fifteen minutes."

The group dissolves; Sousuke and Nitori go to warm up, and Rin stands on his starting block, surveying everyone's progress.

Momotarou heads in the opposite direction, towards Gou.

She looks up when he approaches, looking a little surprised. "Oh. Mikoshiba-kun."

"Gou-kun! It's – it's nice to see you here!"

"Don't call me … ah, never mind. It's nice to see you, too."

_Thanks, nii-chan._

"- but shouldn't you be practicing?"

"Sh – should I?!"

"… this is a practice session."

Oh, shoot. Right. Swimming is still a thing that exists. Momotarou honestly can't remember that there's anything else in the universe when he's around her.

"Mikoshiba!"

Ahh, no. Under fire from both ends. He tries to ignore Rin's annoyed glare and Gou's confused expression and runs past the 'No Running' sign towards the end of the pool where everyone else has just finished warming up and is starting to get in the pool.

He skips the warming up part and dives right in, determined not to be the last one in, and kicks off.

Usually, Momotarou has no problem swimming in a straight line, but he finds himself veering off course several times throughout the first fifteen minutes of practice. It's all because Gou has stopped writing things down on her clipboard and is now standing next to her brother, watching the proceedings.

Like, _really. _He swears to God she's doing it on purpose.

A while later, Rin blows a whistle and announces that it is time to do the first practice relays. The first one is going to be the medley relay.

"There's going to be more than one relay practice today?" Momotarou asks wearily as he rolls his shoulders, preparing to swim the first leg.

"Yes."

"Ugh."

He gets in the pool. Rin hands his whistle to Gou, and Momotarou finds it incredibly difficult not to look at her the entire time. Makoto turns his head a little to look at him and smiles.

"Good luck!"

"You too," Momotarou manages to force out, still using all of his willpower not to look at her.

In the end, he doesn't do _too _badly; he manages to keep pace with Makoto, as it turns out, and the gap between them isn't as big as it was last time. Nitori has plainly been working hard, too, and Rin manages to close the gap between himself and Ryugazaki.

Sousuke touches the wall seven-tenths of a second before Nanase does. The rest of the swim team applauds as he breaks the surface and takes his goggles off, breathing heavily.

Nanase is impassive, as usual. Rin glances at him and shakes his head, sighing.

Nagisa and Ryugazaki look incredibly frustrated. Makoto grins at Momotarou.

"Good job!"

"Thanks," Momotarou replies. "You too."

He doesn't even care that he didn't manage to beat Makoto (yet _again_); there's plenty of time for feeling annoyed at himself later. For now, he's standing right near Gou, and the freestyle relay is going on, which means he has some time.

Things could not have lined up more perfectly.

"Gou-kun!"

He sees her sigh a little before turning to him, but doesn't let that get him down, because if a little thing like that discourages him, he might as well give up entirely.

"Mikoshiba-kun."

"Did you see me just then?!"

"Um … yes. I was the starter for your race."

"Uh – right! Yes. Right. Uh … what did you think?"

Gou looks at him silently for a while. Then she actually laughs – a little giggle that makes his legs so weak he almost falls into the pool.

Could she _be _any cuter? Like … _**really?**_

"I think you have a good chance at prefecturals. But you'll have to work harder if you want to beat Mako-chan."

"Mikoshiba! Back in the pool!"

Rin is glaring at him again, but Momotarou barely notices.


	5. gou realizes something important

"Finally: the four by one hundred medley relay!" Coach exclaims enthusiastically. "Everyone, gather up for the rematch between Team Shark and Team Dolphin! Last time, Team Dolphin took the gold, but this time, who will come out on top?"

"He's making this more dramatic than it needs to be," Rei complains wearily.

Gou glances over at the Samezuka team and silently disagrees. All four of them look – well, the determination to win is clear in all of them, albeit shown in different ways.

"Well, it's okay! I think we've all improved, so we can probably beat them again!" Nagisa reasons excitedly, stretching his arms.

Gou, again, silently disagrees. Their recent times have been exactly the same as last month, when they won the first medley relay, but she doesn't say anything. Nagisa's positivity is always welcome.

Makoto jumps into the water, and so does the redheaded first-year who kept talking to her at their last joint practice – Captain Mikoshiba's younger brother, Gou recalls.

They're clearly brothers; other than the obvious physical similarities, they're both incredibly enthusiastic and stumble over their words a lot, for some odd reason.

She keeps her eyes trained on him instead of on Makoto, ready to study his technique. Rin has mentioned him before in passing – talked about his raw talent and great potential.

If Gou knows her brother at all, she suspects he'll have been grilling the younger Mikoshiba in attempts to mold him into a great swimmer, and hopefully the result will be shown here –

But just as she's about to jot down some notes on her clipboard, something distracts her.

Or, rather, some_one._

_No, _Gou thinks frantically, and takes a small step back. _No, not now. This isn't fair. This isn't allowed._

She tries to fly away and finds that she cannot, thereby confirming that she is not, in fact, in the middle of some kind of sick dream that she'll try to forget in the morning.

Captain Mikoshiba – simply because his first name escapes her mind – has just somehow _appeared _by the Samezuka team, knelt down, and is talking to his younger brother quietly. That familiar smile is on his face.

Gou blushes furiously, even though neither of them have seen her yet, and sidesteps so that she's behind Haru. God, this is so _stupid_ of her; she doesn't even know his first name, and yet this is apparently how she reacts after seeing him for the first time in – what? Two months? Unbelievable.

_Get ahold of yourself! _she chastises herself firmly, because the race is about to start.

Makoto and The Younger Mikoshiba (really, what is either of their first names?) start well; Gou notes how he excels in the underwater phase, and how powerful his kicks are. Makoto's arms are stronger, though, which levels the playing field a bit. They make the turn at the same time and Makoto pulls ahead by a little towards the end.

Nagisa dives in and Nitori follows a split-second after him, and Gou immediately forgets to watch the race because _oh no, he's spotted her._

"Gou-kun!"

"Captain Mikoshiba!" Gou practically shouts, and wants to bury her face in her hands.

"Long time no see!" He grins down at her, all bright smiles and genuine happiness. The kind of face that everyone believes, no matter how many lies he tells. He could probably tell her that the moon was made of eraser shavings, and she'd believe him.

God, she is whipped. Jesus H. Christ.

It hits her then that it might not have been just a stupid high school crush after all.

_**No!**_

Gou slaps herself in the face internally and almost does it literally, but stops herself at the last moment. _Remember – he had a girlfriend who was different than you in every possible way, so there's no reason he'd ever be interested in you. Don't waste your time on this!_

It's one thing to give herself advice, but it's another thing to actually heed it. She realizes all of a sudden that she's been staring wordlessly at him for a while and manages to stammer out: "Y – yeah."

So eloquent.

He doesn't comment on it, though; he just laughs heartily.

"Also, you can call me Seijuro!"

_Ahhhhh, so that's it._

"R – right. Sei-kun," Gou says, testing the name out. It sounds right, so she decides to start using it. "Um…"

They're both saved from having to come up with a new topic because the race is coming to a close, and Seijuro is clearly more interested in it than Gou is, because he says a hasty goodbye and returns to the Samezuka team. Sousuke is ahead of Haru, just like he had at the joint practice, but Haru is catching up steadily as they make the turn and come back down the pool.

Gou already knows what the result is going to be – Samezuka will win, Nagisa and Rei will bellyache to each other, Haru will act like he doesn't care, and Makoto will just be his regular old 'gentle giant' self.

Some things just never change.

At this thought, she glances over at Seijuro, and her gaze slips over to his younger brother.

Yep. Just as she suspected. Those legs are fantastic.

(The rest of him isn't bad either.)

Samezuka wins, in the end, and she doesn't have the capacity to be disappointed, because she suspected as much right from the beginning.

"Team Shark wins!" Coach proclaims loudly. "Congratulations to Rin Matsuoka, Aiichirou Nitori, Sousuke Yamazaki, and Momotarou Mikoshiba!"

Hm.

Lady Fortuna favors her today, it seems.

"Oi. Gou."

Haru's quiet voice makes her realize that she's been staring at Momotarou for a little too long and she turns to him quickly. "Yes!"

"We're leaving. That was the last event."

"Right. Right. Of course."

What is she supposed to do about this?

Gou allows herself one last glance back at the two brothers.

Seijuro is suddenly wearing nothing but a Speedo and has thrown his arm around his younger brother, declaring fervently his intention to challenge Momotarou to a race as everyone else files out.

That doesn't help at all.


	6. in which seijuro is totally over her

**Author's Note: **Wow, I'm sorry for that long hiatus. I just sort of lost interest. You get it. But here we are again, I guess.

This is also quite a divergence from canon, as I started writing this fic right when episode two of Free! had aired and Momo had just entered our lives. I have no clue where I'm going with this.

* * *

Seijuro returns from _'Splash Fest Part Two'_ with adrenaline coursing through his veins, the pleasing knowledge that he can still kick his brother's ass at backstroke, and a very grim realization.

He's still really into her.

Which is not good.

Seijuro's had a bit of a skirt-chaser reputation for the better part of his life (he's got plenty to offer, after all, and he _knows_ it), but God, Gou was different. **Is** different. He can't ever quite think of her in the past tense because she's always so present – always just there, in the back of his mind.

It sucks. Like, for real.

It's hard to get over someone who just won't let you get over them, no matter how hard you try.

He makes friends at university pretty quickly, but they're all the kinds of friends you'd go out to the same bar with for the next four years of your life and never see again after university is over. He knows that they're not the type of friends who'd particularly care about his problems, which is fine by him. He's going to talk to them about his problems anyway, like it or not. Screw them.

Seijuro airs his grievances to a couple of them one day when that awful soap opera his siblings used to make fun of him for watching plays and nobody is bothered to change the channel. This show always makes him think of Gou. Perhaps because he used to do push-ups to work through the pain of the main couple never managing to get together (and that used to remind him of his adorable and unreachable lady love).

" – and I saw her again last week, and I realized that I'm still really into her. Like, _really_ into her, guys," he says, choosing his words sloppily, mostly focused on braiding the friendship bracelet that his sister insisted on.

Seijuro knows that they won't get it; all of them have more or less shed their high school personas in favor of ones that they deem more apropos for university, which includes cutting off many of the ties they left behind.

Seijuro could never do that, though. He has to make sure the older, slightly less attractive Matsuoka doesn't fuck up the team he's invested so much time and effort into building up.

As is to be expected, his words are met with a generally negative response. Seijuro doesn't really absorb a lot of it, but the general gist is that he can't waste the best years of his life pining over that one high school girl who always just sort of avoided him whenever she could. There are tons of university girls and he could probably take his pick if he wanted to.

_Yes, there are a lot of pretty girls, _Seijuro thinks, and curses under his breath when the strings get tangled and he realizes that he might have to ask his sister to send him more string. _But none of them are anything like her._

Because none of them _are_ like Gou, and none of them will ever _be_ like Gou, and Seijuro's pretty sure that he fell head over fucking heels for her and if that soap opera is to be believed, she'll take notice of him if he keeps at it and it all culminates in a rain-and-tear-soaked confession and she catches him just as he's about to leave the city forever and they kiss dramatically and everything is perfect and keyboard smashes ensue as Seijuro trawls through the forums.

Still, he thinks about it, and concludes, after several weeks, that perhaps they're right – that it's a lost cause, anyway. Soap operas aren't reflections of real life, much as he'd like to believe otherwise. After all, if they were, Gou would probably turn out to be his long-lost sister at some point, and that wouldn't be very pleasant.

Momo would be heartbroken.

Luckily, as it turns out, wooing the fairer sex hasn't gotten any more complicated since Seijuro graduated; that girl at the coffee shop who always glances at him when he walks through the door and orders the same thing as him smiles warmly when Seijuro grins and asks if the seat opposite her is taken. They strike up a conversation and the next thing Seijuro knows is that he has a date with her in three days.

The date goes smoothly, and he likes her well enough, but the entire night, his mind is occupied by dark red hair and amazingly cute smiles that just never quit. His answers are short and unfocused and his polite questions are even more so.

Seijuro kisses her at the end of the night with both his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets – or, maybe, she kisses him. It's just a gentle peck of the lips, and it feels like an experiment, if he's being honest. It's too artificial and contrived to really hold any depth in it.

He's glad that it happened, though, because both of them know afterwards that there isn't going to be a second date, and that's for the best.

She smiles at him, a little sadly, wishes him luck, and heads back to her dorm.

He makes the decision to tell his friends that he slept with the girl, and that's that. They congratulate him on not being hung up on his old high school crush anymore and Seijuro smiles but he knows that it'll take a long time before he stops being hung up on his old high school crush.

It sucks, sucks, sucks. Really, honestly, truly.

There was just something _different_ about her. There was always something different about her. At first, he'd just liked her because she was cute, but there was a genuine warmth and beauty about Gou that drew Seijuro in, quite against his will, and before he knew it, he was falling headfirst into her orbit.

He doesn't know if he'll ever manage to get out and, honestly, he's not sure he really wants to.


End file.
